Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

Gate passedSeeker and aboveModern transcription — not a facsimileJacob Boehme (1575–1624)PUBLIC DOMAIN as published. Boehme d. 1624; the Sparrow translation is 1656. Per-part determination MADE 2026-08-29: the eight front-matter segments carrying the 2009 electronic edition own introductory apparatus were withheld (three excised in full, five redacted in part where a public-domain title block or Boehme text shared the page). The remaining 5,022 segments are public domain and are open at seeker tier.905 of 1000 segments carry a modern register · 343 pp

Jacob Boehme — the works in English, and one in Frencheditor’s preface to the volume

Eleven books by a shoemaker of Görlitz who wrote, by his own account, because he could not help it. Ten of them stand here in the seventeenth-century English of John Sparrow, who translated Boehme within a generation of his death and whose prose is itself now four hundred years old; where that English has drifted out of reach, the facing pane carries a modern register — the same text with archaic inflection and spelling normalised by rule, never paraphrased. Nothing is reworded, and where no register appears beside a passage it is because the rules found nothing to change.

The eleventh book is not in English at all, and it is the reason this note exists.

Des trois principes de l'essence divine, printed at Paris in 1802, is the same work as Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence, which stands here as the second book — the same twenty-seven chapters in the same order, opening `Du premier principe de l'essence divine` against Sparrow's `Of the first Principle of the Divine Essence`. Its translator was Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin, who gave the last years of his life to putting Boehme into French, and who has a shelf of his own in this Lycaeum.

That makes a closed circuit inside this archive, and it is worth naming plainly. Saint-Martin translates Boehme. La Iniciación, printed in Montevideo a hundred and forty years later, traces its own descent through Saint-Martin. A reader can therefore follow one thread from a German mystic of 1619, through the French philosopher who carried him into another language, to a Spanish-language monthly of the 1940s that claimed them both — and read every step of it in the original.

The two are shelved as one work rather than two because that is what they are. They are not set as facing panes: an English translation of 1619 and a French translation of 1802 are two independent readings of a lost German original, and pairing them line by line would assert a correspondence neither translator ever claimed.

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18 the Father. 2 him in his anger. All men are invited to this grace, of what condition soever they are, they may all come, whether they be Turks, Jews, Heathen, Christians, or what name soever they are called by, none are excluded ; all that are weary and heavy laden may corne to Christ, he will receive them and refresh them all, as himself saith. And whosoever teacheth, or saith otherwise, or seeketh any other Ch. 25] CHRIST'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION 707 way, is the Antichrist, and entereth not by the true door into the sheepfold. Amen. 65. And now if we consider the scornings, despisings, and mocking of Christ, and that all was done by the instigation of the great ones ; and that commonly they were the poor simple people that followed him, except some few that were wealthy; we then clearly find that which Christ said, That a rich man will hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. This is not meant concerning their riches, but concerning their vainglorious, proud, and covetous life, whereby they consume the sweat of the needy in pride, and forget God. 0 how hard it is for one that is proud, to humble himself before God and man; and the kingdom of heaven consisteth only in the virtue and power of humility.

266. Yet it is seen that some wealthy people did draw near to Christ, whereby it may be perceived, that the kingdom of heaven consisteth not in misery only, but in joy in the Holy Ghost; and none ought to esteem himself happy, because he is poor and miserable ; he is in the kingdom of the devil nevertheless, if he be faithless and wicked. Also none that is rich ought therefore to cast his goods and wealth away, or give them to be spent lavishly, in hope to be saved in so doing ; no, friend, the kingdom of God consisteth in truth, in righteousness, and in love towards the needy ; to be rich damneth none that useth it 708 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 25 aright ; thou needest not to lay down thy sceptre, 1 Or solitary and run into a * corner, crying ; that is but reserved life, , . mi 1-1 in a cloister hypocrisy. Ihou mayest do righteousness, and or monastery, , . 11-1 p n i • -i i T or private " better service to the kingdom ot Uod in holding 1 ifp thy sceptre, by helping the oppressed, protecting the innocent, and granting right and justice, not according to thy covetousness, but in love, and in the fear of God ; and then thou art also a brother to Joseph of Arimathea, and shalt shine brighter than others, as the sun and moon compared with the stars. It is only the pride, covetousness, envy, falsehood, and anger, that is the crown of the devil ; therefore conceive it aright. Of Christ's Rest in the Grave [or Sepulchre^.

367. We know that the body without the spirit is a thing that lieth still ; for though the body of Christ (which the holy element generated in the "Barmhertz- 2 mercy) is from God, yet the mobility and life standeth only in the Deity ; and in us men in the spirit of the soul, and in the spirit of the great world, which are unseparated in this body upon earth. 68. Therefore now the question is, Where was the soul of Christ all the time that the body did rest in the grave? Beloved reason, do not like those that are blind concerning God, who say, the soul [of Christ] went away from the body down into hell into the earth, and during that time, in the divine power and virtue, assaulted the devils Ch. 25] CHRIST'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION 709 in hell, and bound them with chains, and destroyed hell. 0, it is quite another thing. The saints' rising out of the graves at the hour of the death of Christ declareth otherwise. 69. Reason knoweth nothing at all of God ; and if it be not possible to attain further from the gift of God, do not descend down into the deep, but in singleness of heart stay l on the article ; it will not i rest conendanger thy happiness. God looketh only upon that which the will of the heart. Thou must not search so

The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.

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Commentary

whole issue ·

Cross-estate[P-V]translated_asboehme:2:1:003

This English 'Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence' and boehme:11 are the same work in two languages — and the French is not just any translation. It is Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin's own: 'Des trois principes de l'essence divine', issued by the Périsse brothers of the rue Mercière. Saint-Martin learned German in his fifties expressly to read Boehme, and spent his last years translating him. The estate therefore holds, side by side, the text that formed the Unknown Philosopher and the form in which he gave it to France — the single most direct documentary link between the two founders of this corpus.

→ boehme:11